Inspiration | the art of netting and mesh

In the past 5 days, I didn’t make any artworks but think and research, even in my dreams.

This morning, after breakfast I went to sleep again, and in my dream, yes I dreamed about homework again, I dreamed of a big netting which covered my head, my body, my paintings, the houses, the sky, everything, nobody can escape from this big netting.

I was so excited so I bought a bird netting from Amazon immediately, even I still didn’t have clear ideas about what to make, maybe installations?

Our group project is “No Escape”, I wanted to do refugee home issues at the beginning, but last Friday after whole day thinking, I decided to make it broader, to design a participation art to engage people to draw and write their ideas about what they can’t escape and what do they want to do then :

” We can’t escape _____, So, ______________________ “

People said that “art/book/travel/music…… is an escape.”

But the truth is that we can’t escape.No matter where we try to escape, we need to come back to the reality. In art and music, we are facing our heart to figure out what we really love, to deal with reality with our creativity.

I want to do my project “We can’t escape, so ? ” with nettings, then I went to the school library, two painting pictures lighted me up!

For how many times you try to hide and escape but the truth is that everyone still could see you? We can’t escape.

Why not have a performance art then?

I want to design a performance art, I will use a netting to cover myself when I do reading, writing, listening to music, playing music, painting, drawing, traveling, hiking, sleeping, eating, which to express that you think you are escaping the world , but actually you are still connected to the world, you can’t escape.

We can’t escape the reality, the truth, the world, So,Let’s take courage to face it and be part of it.

I plan to do it from Friday to Sunday, during a trip with a friend to Sheffield, he could give me the courage to wear a netting in public, hope so !

After this idea, it’s finally clear in my mind that netting will be the object for the subject “We can’t escape. ”

The theme/title could be “Heaven’s Net (Tian Wang)”, it comes from a Chinses phrase “The net of Heaven has large meshes，but it lets nothing through(天网恢恢，疏而不漏）”, people usually use it for justice, means that “Justice has long arms”, but here I want to use Heaven’s Net/Tian Wang to express we can’t escape anything, so, let’s face it.

Well, it can also have another meaning related to censorship and democracy, “the big brother is watching you. no matter where you run away, he could find you. ” which is another topic I’m interested in and plan to do it.

Then, I started to think and research more ideas about netting and mesh.

The amazing colors of the fishing net made me even want to design a garment based on these elements and colors.

Fishing nets

The beauty of fishnet while fishing made me think about how to do installations.

SONY DSC

Look at the photography about fishnet works in Vietnam, how soft and dreamlike it is!

Artist Janet Echelman and her installation inspired by the fishing net:

In the end, it’s interesting to see this research process, if you just show me the above artworks, I may feel wow amazing but won’t understand why should I do that. But after starting from the theme of “No escape” then dream about fish netting then research about netting and mesh art, finally, when I found these artworks made by netting and mesh, I felt that yes this is what I need for my project, this is what I want to do, actually I fall in love with netting and mesh materials now.

Okay, now I need to learn how to use these wire mesh and settings 🙂

After watching this video I realized that with the mesh I even can try printing!